Why Barack Obama will go down as one of the great Presidents

Saluting a master of the long game

In May, Shepard Fairey, the artist who created Barack Obama‘s much-pastiched “Hope” poster, gave his verdict on the president. “I worked really hard for [Obama] so I had high hopes,” he said. “But there were about six years where I think he could have done more.” Fairey is not the first former supporter to feel disappointed. From Matt Damon (“I no longer hope for audacity”) to Michael Moore (“He was the first black president… OK, not a bad accomplishment, but that’s it”), many have perceived a disparity between the promise of Obama and what he has actually delivered. It has become a trope of his presidency, and perhaps that was inevitable: when you’re awarded the Nobel Peace Prize after only nine months in office, how can you ever live up to expectations? What’s surprising, however, is quite how poorly he is regarded. The only presidents since 1953 with a lower average Gallup approval rating were Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. To be clear: George W Bush was, overall, more popular.

Watching from afar in Britain, that statistic may seem absurd. Over here, we wish some of our politicians had even a hint of the Obama magic: that blend of whip-smart intellect with just-like-you authenticity; of measured demeanour (his nickname is “no-drama Obama”) with outright swagger (he has somehow, remarkably, managed to redefine statesmanship as cool). Every time he appears on Jimmy Fallon or releases a self-deprecating BuzzFeed video or smack talks while playing basketball, the clips circulate on Facebook and our country swoons.

The recent uptick in Obama’s approval ratings as The Donald edged closer to the Oval Office is an acknowledgment from his countrymen that, true enough, the president is a class act. But showmanship alone does not a great president make. For the last eight years, America has been living with the political reality. The prison at Guantanamo, which Obama promised to shut back in 2009, has endured. The right to bear arms, despite the deaths of 20 schoolchildren at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012, remains sacrosanct. Obama’s foreign policy, particularly in Libya and Syria, is viewed as a disaster, turning the former into an Isis outpost and permitting the latter to spiral into chaos.

That record might seem damning. But don’t write off his legacy too fast. GQ would argue that history will commemorate Obama for more than mere style. In fact, for all the noise about missed opportunities, Obama may come to be seen as one of the country’s great presidents.

Here’s the thing: if Hillary Clinton wins the election, her presidency will underline the hard truth that many of Obama’s supposed shortcomings were systemic rather than personal. It’s not as if Obama lacks the drive to deliver on promises such as gun control. His frustration when he discusses the issue is obvious, but an unholy trinity of the five million-member strong National Rifle Association, the supernatural power of the US Constitution’s second amendment and, since 2010, a Republican-dominated Congress, has conspired to scupper his ambitions. Congress, again, is the reason that Guantanamo remains open. And it’s precisely the obstructive behaviour of Congress that makes one of his major achievements all the more astonishing. Despite Republican opposition, Obama prevented a second Great Depression.

It’s only in retrospect that Barack Obama will enjoy full credit for rescuing the economy.

It’s only in retrospect that he’ll enjoy full credit for rescuing the economy; in the here and now it’s hard to appreciate the significance of things that don’t happen. But when Obama arrived in office, he inherited a problem that could have slipped into a crisis unlike any since the Thirties. Towards the end of 2008, GDP had contracted by 8.9 per cent, the steepest quarterly plunge since 1958. A month into his term, the US was haemorrhaging jobs at a rate of 800,000 a month. George Soros described the situation as “probably more serious than anything in our lifetime”. Obama chose to take a bullish course of action: a $800 billion stimulus package, the largest in US history. Yet the Republicans refused point blank to cooperate in moving it through Congress. Before Obama had even had a chance to pitch it to the GOP, the leadership had sent messages to members demanding they vote it down (especially pernicious when one considers the Democrats’ passing Bush’s crisis bill only a few months prior). You have to hand it to Obama that he not only decided to forge ahead regardless, but managed to implement his plan in just six weeks. Sure, it required careful negotiation with Republican rebels, sacrificing, for instance, resources originally intended for a schools programme, but through force of will he found the 61 votes necessary in the Senate.

America’s greatest presidents – Lincoln, say, or Kennedy – are considered as much for their capacity to play a dud hand and nevertheless win big. And the hands Obama was getting dealt were particularly poor. Having triumphed on the stimulus package, he had to solve the underlying economic problem – and again it was his chutzpah that saw him through. Millions of Americans were living in properties worth less than their mortgages, so lending was drying up. Some advisors were suggesting he nationalise the banks. A wrong move could have proved catastrophic, possibly causing a total collapse of the banking system, but the team he convened to debate the issue could not agree upon the correct course of action. How did Obama respond? He simply left the room and said that by the time he was back from eating his dinner they had to have an answer for him. The resulting decision to “stress test” the banks was the right one; financial institutions started issuing loans again.

It’s that same mettle that lies behind his other major achievement. Seven presidents before Barack Obama had tried to expand healthcare to all Americans and seven had failed. Although 45,000 people were dying every year because they didn’t have private health insurance, it had become axiomatic that attempting reform was political suicide. Yet Obama threw himself behind the policy. The Republican response (“Kill the bill! Kill the bill!”) was almost religious in its zeal and the party went into overdrive in its attempts to crush Affordable Care (aka ObamaCare), which aimed to extend health insurance coverage to the 15 per cent of the American population that lacked it. Steering the bill through was intensely convoluted, but Obama refused to back down even when his own closest advisors said it would be impossible. His doggedness paid off: the bill passed with 220 votes to 211 in the House of Representatives. Admittedly, Obama failed in losing control of the message, permitting Republicans to frame it as a “trillion-dollar takeover of government”. Seen in the context of the great continuum of American history, however, where the big picture matters more than petty politicking, ObamaCare will be enshrined as a landmark accomplishment.

Barack Obama made being statesmanship cool, for the first time.

Whereas ObamaCare and the economy were personal quests, there are also significant social changes that Barack Obama didn’t lead on but which are predicated on his presidency. Some suggest that this was, in fact, a deliberate strategy by Obama, because he knew his unpopularity would undermine their chances. Without acting as their champion, he created the climate within which cannabis decriminalisation and gay marriage laws could come into effect. The former happened state by state – marijuana reform has never been on Obama’s policy agenda, but he has done nothing to prevent it and has voiced sympathies with the movement – and the latter is a victory that happened in the Supreme Court.

There are many past presidents whose legacies have benefited from the passage of time. The most transformative policies often don’t play out within an election cycle. Even some of the country’s most maligned leaders have later been judged more kindly. Lyndon B Johnson for his social reforms, say, or Richard Nixon for bringing China in from the cold. Obama’s foreign policy will undergo the same reappraisal as its impact comes to fruition. Its successes go well beyond the drone war against al-Qaeda and the death of Osama bin Laden. Unlike many in Washington who only seem to value that kind of muscular action, Obama prefers, where possible, to wield soft power. It’s less sexy, it’s less visible – but it can be crucial. Just look at Syria, which the received wisdom calls his arch blunder. There’s no doubt that the crisis and its knock-on effects have been disastrous, but it’s not clear cut that military action would have solved the problem. What Obama did manage to achieve, commentators have noted, is the removal of Assad’s chemical weapons arsenal through careful negotiations with Russia. The planned air strikes – which he called off – would have knocked out a fraction of the stockpiles that by now might well have fallen into the hands of Isis.

Similarly, his strategies with Iran and China have all been about sustainability, patience and long-termism. In Iran, he has been pragmatic – he knew the only way to curtail its nuclear weapons programme was to negotiate and work towards a realistic solution. His willingness to take the PR pain and his resolve in getting the deal done is a valuable contribution to the future stability of the Middle East. With China, his “Strategic And Economic Dialogue”, bolstered by personal meetings with the leadership – particularly his two-day Californian summit with President Xi Jinping – have led to significantly better cooperation between the two countries. We’re already seeing the effects in, for instance, China’s sanctions on North Korea and, as the Far East grows stronger, Obama’s investment in Sino-American diplomatic relations will pay dividends.

In late April, just before Shepard Fairey made his critical remarks, Barack Obama had his final White House Correspondents’ Dinner. As is traditional, he made a comic speech and, as is also traditional, whether he was talking about Congress, CNN or Trump (“The guy wanted to give his hotel business a boost and now we’re praying that Cleveland makes it through July!”), behind every wisecrack lay an uncomfortable sincerity. But no joke was more stonily honest than his opening line. His walk-on music was Anna Kendrick’s cover of Lulu And The Lampshades’ “Cups”. As Obama approached the lectern, the song’s chorus rang out: “You’re gonna miss me when I’m gone.” “You can’t say it,” said Obama, glancing around the room, “but you know it’s true.”